The second short-term exchange of groups of pupils took place in Zambrów from 12th May to 16th May 2019 as part of the EU project Erasmus + ‘Bits and Pieces of Culture’, which we have been implementing since last September. 30 pupils from Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Spain and Italy were hosted by their Polish peers' families, thanks to whom they gained new experiences, learned about Polish culture and customs, developed their language skills, and, most importantly, made new friends.
The visitors spent the first day exploring Warsaw, the capital of Poland. They started with a walk in the centre, saw the UNESCO-listed Old Town and the enchanting Royal Łazienki Park. They also visited the best-known and tallest building in the city, the Palace of Culture and Science and took the lift up to the 30th floor to see the city panorama from a height of 114 metres.
In the evening, the participants of the exchange arrived in Zambrów and the pupils got to meet their host family for the first time.
Monday was a very busy day. In the morning, the guests participated in the welcoming ceremony. They were greeted with welcoming words from the Principal Ryszard Świderski. After that, according to Polish tradition, the school community greeted their partners with bread and salt. The highlight of the ceremony was the show prepared by the Polish pupils and teachers. The visitors could listen to some of the Polish folk songs and see traditional Polish dance. Then the pupils took part in a folk song competition, during which international groups were to present one of the partners’ traditional songs. The competition was won by the group singing the Polish song 'Czerwony Jabłuszko'.
In the afternoon, after presenting the national costumes of the partner countries, both pupils and teachers took part in the Motanka Doll making workshop during which the participants learnt the rules of reeling the Slavic dolls without the use of needles, crochet, knives, and scissors, and finally were invited to make their own ‘motanki’ using yarn and materials. The meeting was very joyful – we are happy that we could jointly create unique toys with history (all the dolls were dressed in one of the national costumes of the partner countries).
During the third day of our pupils’ exchange, we experienced nature at its best and stood face to face with the king of the Białowieża forest – the bison! Bialowieża National Park is the oldest national park in Poland, one of the oldest in Europe and the only natural UNESCO site in Poland. It is the most precious area which was created by nature itself without any human intervention. During our walk through the strictly protected area, we were accompanied by a professional tour guide who told us about the best the reserve has to offer. The reserve is inhabited not only by bison but also several other species. Deers, elks, wild boars, wolves, tarpans, Polish horses, lynx, żubron (a hybrid of bison and domestic cattle) live in this area in semi-natural conditions. We also visited the Nature And Forest Museum located in Białowieża. After dinner, we had a lot of fun playing Polish traditional playground games.
In the morning we practised the steps of our common rap dance and our project song. We laughed a lot and had a really good time. When we managed to be proficient in dancing and singing at the same time, we recorded our achievement :-).
In the afternoon we played a city quest game in international teams and learnt about the history and culture of the host town - Zambrów.
Then we took part in a visit to the town hall to meet the Mayor. Each of us got a present from the Mayor.
The last day was mainly devoted to the evaluation of the visit. We took two Kahoot quizzes and found out how much we knew about Poland and the folk songs and national costumes of the partner countries. Then we created some questions about music and dance for our board game. Finally, we filled out a survey concerning the meeting in Poland.
